Could Blockchain Technology be a Boon for the Music Industry?

There is a never-ending hate game going on in the music industry. Let’s not act surprised. We all know about it. And within all this conflict and war for profit going on, there is an imminent need for something concrete that could satisfy all the requirements of every single party in the music industry, even the musicians.

Enter Blockchain Technology, The Solution To Everything

To begin with, nobody really likes the other in here. Starting off with the hardships of the music artists who basically end up having nothing for all their efforts, the music industry is something that feeds off their talents without even thinking about paying them a considerable share from it.

After years and years of tussles and struggles the musicians might have a chance to turn their game around and enjoy the positive side of the music industry that supports the blockchain technology. Drawing the attention of many professionals and investors, blockchain technology has managed to create quite a buzz ever since its inception.

What Exactly Is Blockchain?

Knowing more about this revolutionary technology is essential since it is supposed to do wonders in fixing the problems of transparency in the music industry.

Well, blockchain is a basic solution for setting up a certain ‘distributed ledger’ on the basis of a particular software that can make safe and confirmed transactions without concerning an actual authority.

With the blockchain technology, transactions happening between peer-to-peer networks are kept recorded. Information blocks of the transaction data are validated by the cryptographic method in this particular technology.

How Does It Work?

There are certain features of blockchain technology that make it what it is:

Value Templates: Serving the purpose of providing the respect to the artist during any deal as an equal partner and entrepreneur. With particular terms of an agreement, it provides the much-needed flow of the funding from the users to the artist directly.

Funding Mechanisms: Which enables the artist to raise the venture capital. With that, the supporters of any particular project become equally profited if it is successful

Inclusive Revenues: Using smart contracts, it divides the profits fairly and equally with prompt action, between everyone depending on their actions to make a particular project successful. As a result, not only the music artists but every single professional gets benefitted who has a hand in the record.

Transparency In Ledgers: It helps to solve one of the most common problems of transparency in the music industry. In this way, everyone can view the total profits and revenue of a particular project and determine their share.

Monetizing: Changing the game of monetizing, the revenues are directly streamed to the contributors and the artists. For example, sites like Lightstreams can be used to monetize the digital content by the musicians. These sites only require an Id and a bitcoin storage for the sharing of the content.

DRM: Digital Right Management which efficiently helps in maximizing the digital rights with the assistance of the smart contracts.

Protection From Piracy: It provides a safe and secure method for the artists to exchange their content with the users over a network. Piracy is something that is prohibited in the blockchain technology as everything is safe.

Amazing Pricing Mechanisms: Which helps in experimenting with the schemes and the promotions with can connect the rates of advertising to the demand of a particular record.

Reputation Systems: This can help in culling the data from a transaction history of a token address. This ultimately results in the creation of a reputation score for the token address.

But How Do You Think It Helps The Music Industry?

Blockchain technology is indeed a beneficial model for the musicians but how? Well, with the help of blockchain, artists now have a way of publishing their stuff and building a better relationship with their own fan communities. Blockchain can help the musicians to change their monetization game completely.

Blockchain enables the musicians to publish their content directly on the ledger with just a simple and unique ID. This ultimately solves various problems for the artist they can easily keep their records safe from being copied or modified. Every part of the content is stored in a certain meta-data with serval ownership rights for everyone to look at. It ensures the fact that the deserving people will be paid for the content.

Another way that the blockchain technology helps the artists is that it basically changes the monetization of the music content. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that are blockchain-based are supportive of the micropayments which usher in a new era of offering the on-demand services of music. With the help of this, users are now able to reward the deserving stakeholders after they select a particular content.

And now, as far as we know, blockchain helps to create a more intimate and direct connection between the consumers and the creators. Gone are the days when the artists had to deal with the financial brokers and other platforms who got the bigger chunk of the profits. With blockchain technology, the artists get compensated directly for their efforts.

To Conclude

Is blockchain technology the solution to every single problem in the music industry? Maybe. But does it have the potential to make a considerable change in the condition of the musicians? Absolutely yes. It is true that certain disruptions in the music industry are something that is unavoidable. And it is all due to the blockchain technology. And whether this technology makes a change or just crumbles to dust, time will see. But for now, one thing is for sure, blockchain technology is going to be here for a longer period of time.

Saeed Ashif Ahmed is a Blogger who has a keen interest in how emerging technology can help the world become a more just, equitable, and kind place.
He enjoys interviewing CEOs of tech startups asking them what they are doing to bring greater opportunity and equity to our society.